24 January 2012

Tanja Velma is going to be telling us the story of “The Unknown Lady” by Aleksandr Blok at the Story Boat this Friday. I’ll be reciting an English / Scots version of the poem – so the audience can find a way into the story – as a prelude to Tanja’s recitation of the indescribable sounds of the original Russian verse. (For those Russian readers out there in Hamburg & elsewhere, here's the Russian text.) I’ll also be discussing the poem right here & now on this blog – why should we listen to the Russian & the Scots? - , but before that the work itself:

I ken it tae – the truth’s in wine. I know it too, the truth’s in wine.

(Hugh MacDiarmid’s version of the poem is taken from lines 169-220 of his epic, “A Drunk Man Looks at the Thistle”,best read in a good edition – for example the Penguin 20th C. Classics series.) More about the poem shortly, in the next post .....